


the absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body

by winchysteria



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Boats, Canon Compliant, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, POV Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Pining, Poet Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Summer Vacation, idk - Freeform, idk i'm just typing shit at this point like it's still accurate but not helpful, wow i love the nursey tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchysteria/pseuds/winchysteria
Summary: sometimes you just gotta lie on a boat next to your friend that you both do and do not get along with, and sometimes you are very into him, and sometimes you (a fanfic writer) try to channel a poetry boi and end up blacking out and getting vegas-married to a simile about the color blue





	the absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alocalband](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/gifts).



> hello! this was written (in a state close to delirium) for bitty valentines! it's for tumblr user alocalband, whose blog inspired me to get started on a The Good Place AU, shelve it because it was getting too angsty for this particular challenge, and then become totally self-indulgent and just put them in a really nice, peaceful place full of sunshine where they could touch butts without my having to come up with like. a plot  
> PS: the title is from an Iris Murdoch quote! because I'm pretentious and taking a class about british women writers!! the full thing is: "The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries."  
> PPS: i'm now off to read all of alocalband's nurseydex fic, which i kind of avoided reading while i wrote this because i can feel in my soul that it's beautiful and i didn't want to get all precious and insecure  
> PPPS: if anyone gives me even the slightest hint of encouragement i would drop all of my responsibilities to finish up the good place AU

_hahahahahahahahahaha please rip my entire heart out_

"You okay?" Dex asked, pointing vaguely to the latest line in Nursey's notebook.

Nursey's heart dropped to the floor of his ribcage, and his pulse revved like a motorcycle engine, but his voice stayed steady. "Come on, man, you're not supposed to look over my shoulder at what I'm writing."

Not that that had ever been a rule Dex had been particularly good at following. He was an analyzer, an absorber, a take-apart-and-rebuild-er. He couldn't just look or not look at things. He had to understand what they meant.

Nursey, on the other hand, was a gazer. He was the kind of absolute fucking idiot that could get so caught up in staring at something-- the glittery surface of a lake, the exactness of the folds on a finger knuckle, the tiny purple capillaries in the vulnerable skin of an eyelid-- that his brain traveled on without him and wrote something deeply, unaccountably poetic, like  _hahahahahahahahahaha please rip my entire heart out._ It was a useless kind of artistic transcendence.

The boat swayed beneath them, and the rush and overlap of water under it sounded like a giant swallowing. _Glug_. Nursey turned to his left, only to be directly confronted with Dex's maple-colored eyes. _Glug_.

"Whatever you say, Nurse," he said, holding eye contact for half a second longer, then turning his head back to the sky. Somehow, he did not fear sunburn. Summer Dex was a whole different animal, he'd discovered almost immediately, a creature that could take a long time smiling, that could drink four beers and want to go on a stargazing walk. Summer Dex was the antsy younger brother of Samwell Dex.

"You're gonna turn into a lobster," Nursey said.

"The sun's setting in like an hour," Dex shot back. "My precious, pale asscheeks are safe. Besides, that might be an advantage for a lobster fisherman."

There was a Summer Nursey, too. He had both known and not known this. Summer Nursey was productive, in the best and most unpredictable way; he was at the mercy of his impulses, but he was a better poet than Samwell Nursey, or even New York Nursey. There were a whole host of possible reasons for this. One was that the scenery here was new, rainwashed greens and silvered crumpling blues. Another was that nobody was watching, particularly, the way there always seemed to be someone watching elsewhere. He supposed Dex was watching. He suspected Dex was watching. But nobody else, nobody on the subway next to him or in the elevator getting off at the seventh floor with him, and certainly nobody waiting for him to get up from his table at the diner.

The third reason made something squirm in his chest to think about. The third reason bumped Nursey's boney elbow with his, then complained about losing feeling in his arms. The third reason had gotten tipsy last night and planted his forehead directly onto Nursey's shoulder and smelled like linen and fire.

He tried to conjure his first-year self, tried to describe to him the sensation of lying next to Dex on Dex's uncle's boat-- but the speedboat, the fun one, not the lobster boat-- and feeling content but also desperate to cross his ankle over Dex's and hold him there. A younger Nursey-- a Samwell Nursey or an Andover Nursey-- would have screamed at the prospect. He felt like a disoriented compass. Drawn, and strongly, but certainly not in the right direction.

_i wonder what it would be like and the wonder pulls itself out of my skin when i try to contain it and it curls around you._

"That's kind of nice," Dex murmurs, cheek only a few centimeters away from contacting the skin on Nursey's shoulder.

_Jesus Goddammit Christ Fuck_ , Nursey thinks.

Dex relaxes in Nursey's direction, and his foot rests against Nursey's ankle. Nursey considers throwing his notebook and pen into the water next to the boat. He lays them, instead, on his bare stomach.

"Done writing for the day, Walt Whitman?" Dex teases. His eyes are still closed, and his face is now so near to Nursey that he can't focus on the small and delicate veins in Dex's eyelid. He knows, because he is Dex's only window into the literary world, that Dex is aware of the implications of Walt Whitman.

When Nursey closes his eyes, lets himself melt into the top of the boat and Dex next to him and the water below all of it, he feels like he hasn't been born. The sway of the waves is unnerving, in a way; it's more like a roller coaster when Nursey can't orient himself by seeing the tilt of the horizon. On his shoulder, he can feel Dex's breathing. The exhales travel all the way to Nursey's elbow.

He opens his eyes and picks the notebook back up.

_Will. Please._

Nursey waits for Dex to look up. He waits with his eyes open, following the parabolic path of a seagull through the sky over them. Then he waits with his eyes closed, and can hear the distant roar of a birthday party further down the marina. He considers falling asleep, but his heart thrumming in his stomach keeps him from it.

And then he can feel it-- Dex shifting next to him, Dex's hair brushing the canvas boat cover as he sits up a little. For a hundred and thirty years, there is nothing, and then he can feel Dex's hand on his wrist.

He turns his head slowly, opens his eyes, takes his time looking at everywhere on Dex's face but his eyes.

"Derek."

Nursey scrambles to prop himself on his elbows and kiss Dex on his beautiful, frustrating mouth.

For a few seconds, he is unsure whether he'll have to sit up, to follow Dex away from the beating heart of the boat and the water, but then Dex leans over him and he lays back. He can feel his spine against the white plexiglas hull, and he wraps both his arms-- lazy-- around Dex's neck. There is one hand, a fist, next to Nursey's ribs, and another open but no less insistent on the back of his neck. There is the sound of the seagull, the water, and both of their breathing. Nursey draws Dex's lower lip into his mouth, then releases it.

Nursey holds one of Dex's feet between both of his own, and a firework goes off somewhere three miles deep inside of him.


End file.
